"Hmm, what should I order?"

Now that Jia looked through the menu, she realized that hunger was an understatement. Her stomach looked ready to eat itself if some good fats and proteins didn’t end up there right now.

"Decided! I will have two burgers with fries. What about you?"

Jia found his gaze wandering around the private room they had booked with a mix of curiosity and other feelings he didn’t know how to describe.

"Is this your first time here?"

His gaze landed back at her. "Isn’t this just a cheap version of a hotel room? You could have just admitted that you want to have sex here."

"Who is even talking about sex here? Get your head out of the garbage," she made a face.

"I mean, the couch will be a little uncomfortable, but we will manage~"

"You want me to choke you on this couch?"

"If you are into BDSM then why not?" He sheepishly grinned.

She flapped the menu across his face. "Two burgers and fries for me. What do you want to eat?"

"Two burgers and fries? That’s a lot of un of unhealthy."

Jia paused. "Are you here as my friend or a doctor?"

"Both."

"The last role is not allowed. I am starving."

"And stuffing all these fats at once is inviting only trouble. So we will replace fries with a salad."

Jia made a dissatisfied face. "I was looking forward to the fries."

"So I was looking forward to having sex but we don’t get everything we wish for now, do we?"

"Don’t compare my innocent fries to your perverted sex! They are miles apart," she glared.

He chuckled. "They are tempting evils one way or the other. Anyway, what are we supposed to do here?"

"You have seriously never gone to a karaoke before? Not even once?"

"Nope."

"Then what did you do in high school and college?"

"Study."

"Don’t make it sound like others don’t study and party all the time. But oh well, everything has a first time~"

"You have come here a lot?"

"Of course. Some one or two high school friends but mostly Huojin after we got to know each other."

The tips of his ears perked up at that instantly.

Jia was busy choosing the song from the menu when Mingshen grabbed it away and said, "You used to come here with him a lot?"

"Yeah."

She moved to take the menu away but he shook it away again. "Only the two of you or with other friends too?"

"Mostly just us. Sometimes, we would drop a visit with the entire department. Lots of drinks and food. Now give me the menu."

"What was the frequency of only the two of you versus with the entire department?"

She paused. "What kind of Twenty questions game are we playing here? Would you be happy if I said Huojin and I have visited more often than with the gang?"

At that point, Mingshen’s expression didn’t look too good. "Why would I be happy?"

"Duh. Don’t you keep calling him my ok-ok boyfriend? I sense you want to hear some private, too much information kinda gossip, but you aren’t getting any."

His gaze darted left and right. "Because you don’t want to tell me?"

"Because nothing of that sort happened in the first place."

"Thank God."

Jia’s eyes narrowed. "What?"

"What?"

"Why did you sound relieved just now?"

"No, I didn’t," he blinked.

"You just said ’Thank God.’"

"That’s just your imagination."

Her brow twitched. "We are literally sitting just inches away. You want to accuse me of poor hearing ability?"

She shook her head and left it at that when her phone buzzed. She swiped up and beamed. "Oh Huojin."

Mingshen slipped off even though seated. He slowly turned towards her, who was happily typing on her phone.

"Why did he ping you?"

"He wants to know where I am," she glanced at him. "Do you want to invite Huojin too? No, wait. I believe you just wanted it to be us, didn’t you? Well, I will tell him no in that case."

Suddenly, flowers bloomed around him, making the karaoke room look more like a garden than a singing place.

"You will reject him?" His face brightened like the sunshine.

"Yeah. We made plans first."

The flowers bloomed more than their blooming capacity at this point. His hand went to reach his chest, feeling abnormal heartbeats racing across his chest.

Clearly, Spicy also wants to spend some passionate private time with me~

"Anyway, Huojin will probably make plans for later so we will meet then," she shrugged.

"..."

The flowers wilted fast enough.

"...You will make plans with him?"

Jia wasn’t exactly looking at him, still chatting with Huojin, so she was blind to the grey cast overcloud forming on top of his head.

"Yeah, well Huojin surely would. Probably, it would be the arcade? It’s been a long time since we played some games. And lots of beer," she grinned, her gaze lit up with the thought of her future entertainment.

"And will you go?" He frowned.

At that point, Jia’s attention shifted to Mingshen. "Well, if we decide on the time and place, then yes."

"Why will you go with him? Is it so fun being with him?" he frowned.

"It seems like we really are playing some version of Twenty questions."

"Just answer me," he glazed at that comment.

"Of course it’s fun being with him," she chuckled, "We have known each other for a long time. We have lots of common topics we talk about. Like the cases we work on."

"We work on cases together too."

"Then the day to day drama with our neighbors and in our locality. At least when I used to live in the apartment."

"The Yang mansion...doesn’t have neighbors or that kind of locality."

"Then he talks about his sister, I talk about Lihua. Sister-chatter is a lot of gossip time for us."

"We could have chatted about them too if my sister was-" he froze and shut his lips quite abruptly.